“Let me carry your bag.”
Frozen with horror, the gambler felt a hand remove his own gun and the flashlight.
“What’s this?” demanded the voice. “Oh, I see—a searchlight! That’ll be nice. Keep your hands right where they are!” The hand felt for further weapons. “All right!” said the voice. “Now open up and we’ll go upstairs. You tote the baggage. Close the door gently, please. March!”
There was nothing else to do; so Beck marched.
“I may not do as good a job on you as you did with Bennett,” said the voice apologetically; “but I’ll fix you up some way. While you was tyin’ Bennett up I raided the whole durn neighborhood for clothesline. This’ll be one awful grouchy town on wash-day!”
Beck’s scalp prickled with an agonizing memory of Bennett’s ghastly face, as he had seen it last; the hair began to rise. He stopped on the stairs rebelliously.
“I wish you would yell once, or balk—or something,” said the voice hopefully. “It’d save me a heap o’ trouble—trussing you up. G’wan, now!”
The gambler g’waned.
Chapter IX
THE sky was washed clean; the sound of church bells floated across the sunny meadows; the winds were still, save as a light and loitering air wandered by, poignant with a spicy tang, the sweet alloy of earth.